


those you've known

by Lolymoon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Child Abuse, F/F, Memory Alteration, Sister-Sister Relationship, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5926438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolymoon/pseuds/Lolymoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Zelena shrugs. “I'm not sure I see what's so good about family.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Regina waits for a heartbeat, two hearbeats, a lifetime of hesitation about the timing of words, and then she blurts out: “Well, there's you and me. What we have is good, isn't it?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“We?” Zelena croaks.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Regina turns fully on her side to look at her.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“We're like family, aren't we?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>----</p><p>Once Upon A Time, Zelena and Regina loved each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	those you've known

**Author's Note:**

> So, after the casting call for a young Regina and a young Zelena and some speculations going on in the fandom, I just couldn't resist writing a backstory for these two. Cuteness and angst ahead. For some reason, Zelena started talking in my head sort of like Lyra from His Dark Materials and didn't want to change no matter what I tried. Let's say she had to go through that before she learned her refined British accent.
> 
> Strong warning for child abuse.

 

 

 _\- Those youve known and lost still walk behind you_  
_All alone, their song still seems to find you_  
_They call you as if you knew their longing_  
_They whistle through the lonely wind, the long blue shadows falling_ -

Those You've Known (Spring Awakening)

 

* * *

 

 

She dreams of her first.

Lost in a forest the kind of she's never seen before. Where the air is moist and the tree barks are runny with water and the green is lush and stifling. Where morning never rises and creatures howl and hoot, and she's so frightened she feels it hot and deep in her belly, like when Mother's voice drops and her hand flexes.

She cries a lot, at first, until someone hears her.

“Shut your mug! Do you want them bloody demons to catch you?”

Regina yelps and scurries to her feet, her little fists raised tight against her chest, her chin wobbling but her voice firm when she calls: “Who's there?”

“Quiet you snot!”

Something stirs in the dark behind her, and she whirls on her feet in a sudden volte-face, squinting at the large ferns, so much more impressive than the ones back home. The giant plants part to reveal a girl about her age or older, whose immediate striking feature is the flaming red hair almost as long as her willowy body.

“If they get us because of you, I swear I'll beat you bloody.”

Regina can't help it, she snorts.

“As if _you_ would scare me.”

The girl pauses, eyes clear and piercing and searching fast and through. She seems to alter whatever perception she had made of her first.

“Who do you think you'll knock out with your fists held like that? You look ridiculous.”

Regina bites her lip, risking a quick glance down at her hands.

“Billy taught me to do it like that. He's one of the kitchen boys and he told me he is a great fighter. He knows what he is doing better than you do!”

“The boy's a dirty liar,” the redhead scoffs, striding towards her with sure and quick steps and grabbing her wrists (she doesn't have time to recoil), drawing them away from her chest, one further than the other. The girl frowns, spreads the hands still curled into fists a little further apart, then steps back to admire her work.

“That's how you have to hold 'em, right? And when you punch, you want to strike here.”

The strange girl circles her wrist again, brings her fist to her chin, knuckles colliding in slow-motion with the jawbone.

“Right? You see?”

Regina nods, a bit skittish. Then, she tries a slow, shy-looking smile, and the girl blinks, looks away, drops her wrists.

“Where do you come from anyway? What kind of place that is where noble ladies learn to fight from the kitchen scum?”

“Billy is _not_ a scum,” Regina says forcefully, knitting her brows hard together. “And how would you know that I am a lady?”

Regina sees a flash of sickly green in the girl's eyes, something mean and hard, and bony fingers grab the collar of her gown, with enough strength to tear it.

“That's too fancy a garb for a commoner. Besides, you talk all proper 'n well. What are you, a duchess?”

The girl's eyes are like the wolf's in the covers of fairytale books, like the pauper children's when they look up at her carriage, they're hungry, so hungry there's a void in them down which she's afraid to fall.

“I am not. My father was a prince, but he lost his lands and titles. I'm just a girl, same as you are!”

“You are nothin' like me,” spits the girl with blazing hair and empty eyes, and Regina looks at her, really looks at her, at her dirty cheeks, the dark stain down her neck, the freckles, the worn out brown frock, the hole in her stockings at the knees, and she feels... a strange taste of sadness in her mouth, one that makes her embarrassed, and ashamed.

One that Zelena reads like pity, and she's right.

Zelena turns tails and goes back into the nest of ferns, without a single glance back at the dark-haired little girl with her ridiculous fists.

“Wait!” she hears, and clumsy feet pad after her.

“I don't want no company, go away!”

“Please, take me with you I don't want to stay all alone here!”

“I don't care!”

Something small and sticky and warm slides into her hand, holds her fingers, makes her stop. She glances down – the lost girl barely reaches her shoulder – and huge, deep brown eyes look back at her, so open and pleading and trusting, and they're so stupid, those eyes, so stupid and helpless, these are the eyes of the little kid people spit on and push around, of the young girl who would bite her lip and say nothing as an ugly old man runs his hand over her skirt, these are the eyes of someone fated for sorrow, eyes made of tears, dreaming of starlight.

These are not eyes you say no to.

“Bugger. Fine, come along, wimp. But don't you snivel at me or get me caught by them Lost Boys, understood?”

The little thing nods her head fiercely, and at least there's that.

They start off again, tiptoeing around feral looking roots and hiding under the greenery, and Zelena tries not to think about the small hand she still hasn't let go off.

“My name is Regina,” the tiddler says after long, blissful minutes of silence.

“Mine's Zelena. Now, shut it!”

 

.  
.  
.

 

“So, what is this place?”

It's been a few nights, of moonlit meetings, secret laughters in the crook of a tree, shivering with fear but brave in spite of it, a few nights of awkward smiles and timid friendship. Zelena casts a curious glance at her small shadow who hasn't stopped following her around the island since they've met, chewing on a strand of her red hair as she muses.

“You mean you don't know?”

The young child slowly shakes her head, and Zelena turns to face her with her body, sitting cross-legged and bending forward, whispering in conspiratorial tones, a proud look on her face at being the one telling stories and spreading knowledge.

“Why, we're in Neverland, of course.”

“What's Neverland?”

“That's where children go in their sleep. Well, not all children. But some. There's a demon-child calling them, and he's got them Lost Boys with him, running around the island, terrorizing the children who do come here and keeping some prisonners. Because sometimes his shadow comes while you're asleep, right, and it takes you away!”

Regina makes the proper gasp at the climax of the story, and Zelena smiles, sly and smug.

“How do you know all this?” Regina asks eagerly, staring in awe at the savant girl, but Zelena bristles, suddenly defensive and insecure.

“Why? You think because I've got holes in my stockings and knickers I'm an ignorant clod?”

“No?” says Regina, looking so confused and genuine that Zelena calms down instantly.

“There's an old man keeping old books in his shop back there in my village. Sometimes I break in to go read 'em, even while he's here. I don't have to worry about a thing, he's deaf as a post!”

She shifts her feet, sliding a finger through the hole on her knee, scratching at the skin there.

“I don't even know why he keeps them books, he can't even read. Me, I had to taught myself after my Mum died, she's the one who taught me my letters first, she was clever.”

Zelena's eyes are downcast and she tugs hard at the wool of her stockings, widening the hole.

“I didn't know you mother had died,” Regina breathes, her eyes filling with tears. “It is too awful, I am sorry.”

Zelena shrugs, and her eyes don't burn, her throat doesn't clog, her nose doesn't prickle, and she definitely doesn't hold on to Regina's offered hand.

“Well. I was seven, old enough to fend for myself, my father said. That's when I started to work at the inn.”

Gently, like a butterfly spreading its wings, Regina presses her cheek to the back of Zelena's hand, leaning into her until the older girl's arms close in around her, but even at ten years old, she has no illusion as to who is comforting whom.

“Things must be very hard for you.”

“I hate my life,” Zelena blurts out, and that's when Regina's hair and face start to get wet with a rain that doesn't come from the sky.

Her friend's arms are still strong and tender around her, but her voice is cold and unnecessary cruel when she says: “You're lucky you're a rich little girl with parents that care for you and give you everything you want.”

Regina waits for Zelena's sobs to subside, and then, her voice small and shivering like a twig, she asks: “Why do some children come to Neverland and not others?”

She hears some sniffling, and then Zelena says, the words thick and mumbled:

“It's the island of the lost. It's only for lonely children, the ones who feel like they don't belong nowhere.”

“Oh,” Regina says very quietly, discreetly tugging at the long, bruise-concealing sleeves of her nightgown. “I thought it might be something like that.”

That gives Zelena some pause, and a lot to think about as the little girl eventually falls asleep in her arms, and slowly fades away to her own realm to wake up.

 

.  
.  
.

 

Not every time goes as smoothly as two children whispering confessions to each other in the dead of the night.

They're almost caught, at one point, Zelena yelling at Regina to run, she'll follow, but the little girl doesn't go far barefoot in a gown that catches on every sharp edges of the jungle, and she falls, inevitably, and Zelena doesn't even hesitate, she stops by her side and whirls back on their assailants, shielding the smaller girl with her body, growling and showing her teeth and being so ugly for a while that she scares the boys, who start to look back at the safety of their camp, but one of them, taller and older and a leader, most likely, spurs them forward, and then Zelena's hands are flying and bright light is pouring from them and the Lost Boys are thrown back and she is laughing, laughing and Regina is screaming, screaming, but she doesn't register it until they all scurry away, some carrying their unconscious mates.

She turns back to Regina, kneeling by her side, frantic, thinking she's hurt, but the girl draws her knees back to her chest and all but crawl away from her, shrieking.

“Get away from me!”

“What? Ginny, what's wrong? What –”

“You have magic just like her! You're a monster!”

Regina's face is twisted with terror and disgust and her father's eyes are sickened and hard and the sting on her cheek is still hot and the sting in her heart is new, _“you wicked girl”_ , his voice says, _“you ugly little monster.”_

She feels the tears gathering in her eyes but she blinks them away, one by one, tries to blink the images and memories too but they've sunk deeper, they have bigger teeth, and Regina is breathing so hard and trying to escape on all fours, and when Zelena touches her shoulder to bring her back, careful, so careful, trying to be gentle like her mother was, like no other she knows is, but Regina shudders and recoils under her touch and screams louder, sobbing: “Please don't hurt me!” and something doesn't set right on Zelena's stomach. She lets her go, afraid.

She waits until Regina seems to reach what she thinks is a safe distance, just a few steps away, holding herself upright against the bark of a tree throttled with a strangler fig. She waits, and makes sure to look into the wide, watering brown eyes.

“I would never hurt you, Ginny. I love you.”

Regina blinks, the water trembles and falls.

“She says it's for my own good,” she murmurs, almost absently, her eyes looking back, looking in. “She says it's because she loves me very much and wants what's best for me.”

“That's rubbish,” Zelena says, and she sounds rough and insensitive but her eyes are sparkling and sizzling in turns.

Regina lowers her head slowly, as if a weight is being pressed on it to the point she can't look up from the ground anymore, and Zelena has to strain her ears to hear her.

“She's my mother. She loves me.”

“She's a bloody liar, Regina. That's not how mothers love. I don't know much, but that I know.”

Regina wipes her nose with her sleeve, her gesture dainty for something so undignified, and Zelena has to smile.

“Can I come closer?”

Regina gives her a tiny nod, still not looking up, and Zelena goes to her, facing her in her favorite cross-legged position, her hand hesitating before giving Regina's knee the smallest push.

“I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't mean it.”

“I know,” Regina sniffles, and Zelena catches her looking forlornly at her sleeve, as if upset at the idea of spreading more tears and snot on it, and the young witch rolls her eyes, dabbing at the red little nose with her own sleeve, a scowl on her face.

“You're such a prissy princess, sometimes,” she grumbles, and Regina finally looks at her, and she hears her laughter, like pearls clicking against each other, and Zelena keeps roughening her nose, her cheeks flushed, caught in an act of almost motherly care she doesn't know how to move on from.

“You deserve to be loved better than that, little zit,” she says eventually, brushing back the wild strands of dark hair with her fingers. “I'll make sure of that.”

And somehow, she senses that Regina trusts her, again, like that first time, and she doesn't know how a child that has been hurt as much as she seems to have been can trust like that, so easily, so completely, and she's so terrified of failing her she wants to roll up into a ball and forget all about pearly laughter, rosy chubby cheeks, a mischievous smile, and trusting brown eyes.

 

.  
.  
.

 

She avoids doing magic around Regina. In a way, it feels like being at home again, enchained by self-loathing, but in every other ways, it's not, because Regina looks at her and she doesn't see magic, or monster, or wicked, because she looks at her and she smiles, and her eyes shine with wonder at her stories and admiration at her brag, and she doesn't think twice about taking her hand, and she doesn't step back when Zelena touches her.

There's still a part of herself that's bound, held back, but still, she's never felt more freedom than during the nights of running around Neverland.

She's never felt more accepted than with Regina's sleepy head dropping on her shoulder.

 

.

 

Regina learns not to show fear. She's still anxious about her new friend's abilities and magic makes her skin crawl in the most nauseating way, but that means nothing against the sadness in Zelena's eyes and the sour line of her lips. She has to fight against her every instincts, strangle the pestering voice in her head that screams for her to run, to hide, to ask for forgiveness, to say she'll be good, but she fights and she quiets her fears and in the end she masters them around the red-haired witch.

She discovers that love is a much better incentive for bravery than punishment.

 

.  
.  
.

 

“Bloody hell, Ginny, what happened to your face?”

There's blood – so much blood she feels like her own has been drained from her as she drops to her knees, blanched-face and shaken, in front of Regina. The little girl is holding herself straight, her back so hard her spine seems made of wood, and her face is tilted up slightly, completely still as if she doesn't dare to move it.

“Can you speak? Did that crazy witch of a mother do this to you?”

“She doesn't like it when I talk back,” Regina gurgles through the blood, and Zelena almost rips half of her dress in the process of getting herself a cloth to give Regina's face a human appearance once again, her insides boiling with fury and pity all the while.

“We need to find water to clean that up. There's a brook back there, can you walk?”

Regina hums softly and Zelena takes her hand, guiding her quickly towards a thin stream of clear water, where both of them sit down on the bank. She dips the piece of her dress she's torn off in the strong current, and brings it dripping to Regina's face, who closes her eyes in frightful anticipation but doesn't recoil when Zelena starts gently dabbing at her mouth where most of the blood is gathered.

“How did you even manage to fall asleep with that wound,” Zelena whispers to herself, but Regina hears her and answers, somewhat ashamed:

“I cried so hard I tired myself out and I fell asleep in the attic. Mother will probably come looking for me any minute now.”

Zelena grits her teeth and says nothing, running the now blood-soaked cloth in the water again to clean it up as much as possible, before taking it back to Regina's face, and after a few repetitions of this, Regina's skin is almost clear, if not a little pink, and the cut is neat above her upper lip.

“You'll get a scar from that,” Zelena says and Regina's eyes burn and harden.

“Good.”

Zelena cocks her head, her hands falling to her laps.

“She doesn't usually leave scars, does she?”

They've never talked like this about Cora – Regina only said the name once, and Zelena had it branded on her heart forever, Cora, the woman who needs to die, and who will by her own hands, she swears it – just like they don't talk about Zelena's father either. There are enough nightmares lurking around Neverland without adding the real-life ones.

But the blood has breached something within Zelena, and when she looks at Regina, she sees the first hints of a resilience solid and cold as steel.

“Scars alter a lady's beauty,” she recites in a toneless voice, and then there's a smirk. She never saw it on Regina's face yet, but there are strong lines around it that tell her it's here to stay. “I'd rather be ugly if it can ruin her plans to have me married into the monarchy.”

Zelena looks bewildered, and then she laughs, loud and deep, patting Regina's chin with her thumb.

“You could never be ugly even with both your eyes gouged out, zit.”

Regina smirks again, that same expression, with only the unscathed corner of her mouth curling up, and Zelena thinks, something needs to change.

 

.

 

When Regina wakes up to the beam of sunlight tickling her nose through the attic window, the blood on her face has never been removed, and she can hear Mother's steps on the staircases, slow and heavy like a funeral march.

But the smirk remains, even when it's hidden deep within her.

 

.  
.  
.

 

It happens because Regina has eaten more than she should have that day and Mother forces her to sleep with her corset on, tightened to the point she can't breathe, tightened to the point where the whalebones are digging into her skin until she bleeds, and she lies in bed, without breath, without sleep, without respite, and she can't dream of Neverland that night, and she doesn't make a sound, but she wishes, oh she wishes, praying to the fairies, that a young girl from another world could cross over and hold her hand.

 

.

 

It happens because she hasn't said thank you when her father has served her food, or what passes for food in their home, it happens because she has been sullen and depressed since the boys have thrown mud on her witch's hair in the market's place, and before she knows it her father slaps the back of her head, sending her face-first into her bowl of stew.

“In this house we say thank you for the food we're given,” he growls, his words stodgy and his tongue slow with inebriation, and she wipes at her face with an angry sleeve, glaring hard at him with all the hatred she can muster.

“I'm the one working for your food, and I'm the one that's cooked it, so you should be thanking me!”

She yelps in surprise as he grabs her by the hair and slams her head against the table, once, twice, lights dance before her eyes and he holds her down, her cheek scraping against the splintered wood.

“You'll say thank you, you wicked witch! Or I'll throw you in the streets. I have no reason to keep you here for the good you do me!”

He presses down harder and she feels her skull about to burst.

“Thank you,” she chokes at last, and he lets her go.

 

.

 

Night doesn't come soon enough. She waits by the window of the elderly deaf man's house, the cold air a blessing on her blotched face, her fingers clutching a heavy book perched on her knees, lips murmuring the incantation to summon the shadows over and over again. The old grandpa has no idea what can be found in that library of his, she thinks with a thundering heart, while she waits, and waits, and when the Shadow arrives, snuffing out the flames of the candles, eclipsing the moon, swallowing all light, she's ready. She blows gently on the book as she Shadow reaches for her, the words flow off the pages and gather into a tight, golden leash, lassoing the neck of the monstrous thing in one swift curl.

“Sorry bloke, you're not taking me to Neverland tonight.”

Zelena climbs on the edge of the window and jumps on the back of the hissing Shadow, closing her hand on the end of the leash.

“We're going to a whole new world.”

She flies over the village that's always been too small for her, above the house that's never been a home where she swears she can hear the loud snoring of her father, and she spits down and says: “I won't miss you one bit you sad old drunk.”

 

.

 

When Regina opens her eyes in the morning, bleary and unfocused, red-rimmed from crying and staring too long at the ceiling, she's greeted by freckles, and wild blue eyes, and a bushy, red mane she'd recognize anywhere. Zelena's lopsided smile is met with a gasp.

“Hello, zit. You took your sweet time to wake up, didn't you?”

 

.  
.  
.

 

A different routine goes on, which isn't restricted anymore to night-time and an imaginary island. Regina makes sure Zelena is hired in the kitchen and Cora, who lets Henry handle the lowly help when it doesn't concern punishment and never steps foot in the servants' quarters, never notices. No one among the staff knows where this savage strange girl comes from, and no one has time to care. They have other fish to fry.

The girls are resourceful, Cora is not yet the full overbearing mother she'll once become, Regina's youth still a hindrance to her plans, and they find the time to elope, they create their moments, their own world where 'possible' becomes a word with meaning again.

Regina is the teacher this time around. She instructs Zelena in the culture of her world, the severity of their etiquette, the peculiarities of their ways ( _“so does this thing really exist? True Love?” – “I don't know. But I hope it does!”_ ). She teaches her how to curtsy and deflect a back-handed compliment with a smile, how to write and talk like a lady, how to ride a horse. She has fun watching Zelena yelling a thousand curses at the uncooperative animal, and falling hard on her butt when the mare, lacking patience, throws her off.

But mostly, Regina talks. She talks better and she talks more than in Neverland, away from the mysterious fumes and looming threats, she talks and Zelena listens like no one else, all her dreams, her hopes, her fantasies.

“You really do want that, don't you?” Zelena says one day as her friend rambles about her future where her true love and she will live happily ever after. “The husband and children and marriage?”

They're lying on the grass upon a tall hill, gazing at the clouds, Zelena chewing on a long weed, Regina crossing her arms behind her head, and she casts her a curious look.

“Don't you?”

Zelena shrugs. “I'm not sure I see what's so good about family.”

Regina waits for a heartbeat, two hearbeats, a lifetime of hesitation about the timing of words, and then she blurts out: “Well, there's you and me. What we have is good, isn't it?”

“We?” Zelena croaks.

Regina turns fully on her side to look at her.

“We're like family, aren't we?”

Zelena turns on her side as well, her thoughts cloaked away behind her usually clear eyes.

“We don't even look alike.”

“We could be sisters,” Regina goes on, dismissive, feeling her heart swell, getting fuller and fuller with every word. “Sisters don't have to look alike, you know.”

“I wish I had your hair,” Zelena sighs, sliding her fingers along Regina's braid, smiling as the girl, oblivious to her own beauty, frowns.

“That's silly. If I had beautiful red hair, I'd never want to change them. It's the prettiest I've ever seen!”

Zelena's fingers still.

“You mean that?”

Regina smiles and takes her hand.

“You know, if I have children, I would want them to have red hair, just like yours!”

And Zelena laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and rolls down the hill, Regina following closely behind, both of them bumping knees and elbows on the clods, and they reach the foot of the mount in a tangled mess of limbs, and winded smiles.

Regina helps Zelena up, her face shimmering like the sun.

“I have an idea!”

 

.

 

The magical slap she receives that night followed by an indefinite time-out in Mother's vault are worth every second of Zelena trying to dye her hair with beet-juice. Even if it did nothing but add a vivid auburn hue to her dark hair that will be gone in a month, even if the gasping heartbeats in the walls make her sick, she smiles, hugging herself tight, holding on to that rare moment of fun, to that part of Zelena she now carries in herself, different and rebellious, hot like the blood they've exchanged palm to palm as part of their sworn sisterly bond.

 

.  
.  
.

 

“Ginny, you're crying too hard, I don't understand you one bit!”

“She's taking me away!” she screams, sobs wracking her cramped chest, fists pressed to her mouth to contain the flow of her grief that breaks through the derisive barrier anyway.

Zelena feels her legs give in and she sits down on the other stool by the kitchen's hearth. The room slowly empty out, with the chief cook gently pressing Regina's shoulder in passing, and giving Zelena an encouraging nod.

“For how long?”

Regina shakes her head, her eyes closed.

“I don't know. She says I've become too wild, too disorderly, and it's time for me to be taught better manners. She's sending me off to some distant relative's court as his pupil. Oh, Zelena, I want to die!”

“That's nonsense,” the young witch barks, anxious lines on her forehead. “Don't be so dramatic, zit. We can find a way out of this. What did you father say?”

“You know my father will never oppose my mother. And Zelena, if I go... I'll probably never come back.”

Tearful brown eyes finally lock with striking blue, and Regina's words are hushed as if them not being spoken too loud could erase their reality:

“The man I'm being sent too... he is a a count in the Southern kingdom, with close connections to the royal line... and he has a son, barely older than me. I know, I know Mother is trying to make a match!”

Regina lets out a loud, ugly sob again, blindly searching for Zelena's hands, holding tight when she finds them.

“I don't want to marry someone I don't know! I want to be given a choice! I don't want to spend the rest of my childhood in a court where all my comings and goings are going to be watched and discussed and frowned upon at the slightest mistake! I'm only twelve years old, I'm not ready for my life to be over!”

She slides off her stool and onto her knees, not minding the cold ashes on the floor staining her dress, burrowing her head in Zelena's skirt.

“I'm not ready to give you up either! I can't!”

Zelena gently combs her hair with her fingers, mute like she's never been in her life before, eyes lost and terrified, but slowly, slowly as Regina's sobs subside, they start to gain focus, and she murmurs forcefully, still stroking Regina's hair: “Then we go away. We go away and you won't ever have to let someone decide your fate for you, ever again.”

Regina slowly lifts her head, her eyes rising to meet Zelena's.

“But... where?”

“Wherever we want. Another place. Not Neverland, not my world, not yours. A new world. A world of our own.”

“With magic?” Regina says, shakily, and Zelena nods, her jaw set, her mind whirling with a thousand options, her eyes oblivious.

“I can't use the Shadow this time it won't trust me again... but I've heard of magic beans... and mermaids... if only we could –”

She stops, finally registering that Regina has let go of her hands, and crept towards the fire, her back leant against the stone, her head turned to the flames.

“So we would just... leave? And never come back?”

The fire moves the shadows across Regina's face, painting it dark, and anguished.

“And I would never see my mother or my father again?”

Cautious and tense, Zelena rises from her stool, and kneels down by Regina's side, clasping the younger girl's shoulder in a strong grip.

“Regina. Do you really think you can survive much longer under your mother's thumb?”

Her words are filled with sense and reason, she knows; but Regina's heart is filled with love and pain, and those worlds never battle well together. She stares hard at the fire, her mouth fixed in a grim line.

“I love her,” she says stubbornly. “I love them.”

“But they don't love you,” Zelena replies, as gently as she can with jealousy and compassion and care and anger warring in herself. “Not like a family should. Not like I do.”

She takes Regina's palm and presses it against hers, where barely a white line of a slit remains, where they both drew blood and mixed it together.

“We're sisters, aren't we?”

Regina's smile is slow and unsure, her eyes never wavering from their joined hands.

“I trust you,” she says, and she means it, fearing everything else.

 

.  
.  
.

 

Regina only becomes fully convinced when her mother starts to make plans and preparations and force-feed her daughter with all the Southern customs. Zelena has already found a way out, by then.

She hasn't used magic ever since she came to Regina's world. She's been careful not too. Somehow, she had felt that Regina wouldn't so easily dissociate her from Cora in her mind, not here, not were the trauma is raw, the monster so real. She almost easily shakes off the nausea brought by shame as she forces the villager woman who told her about the magic beans to reveal where her knowledge comes from. The woman's eyes are bulging and sweat is breaking on her forehead as Zelena invades her mind, makes her speak. She has no idea how she does it, magic is as natural to her as breathing, all she knows is she's wicked, a bad seed, a rotten wretch, but maybe there's still hope for her, maybe if she stops after this, this last thing they need, maybe if Regina's by her side, with her smile so bright and her eyes so tender and her love so warm, maybe she can become good and not do magic anymore.

She learns what she needs to know and goes off to the market.

 

.

 

Her lead is a dead-end.

She's asked everyone in the bloody place. No one ever heard of a young boy asking for a cow in exchange for a bean. And they would have remembered, they tell her with a snort, about such a ludicrous bargain.

She waits by the fountain, looking at the stone trouts that never spill any water, feeling her eyes prickling with tears, her mind devoid of thoughts.

A cold, weathered voice reaches her ear.

“If it's a magic bean you need, girl, I might be of some assistance.”

The crone is cloaked in dirty, grey rags, her face veiled with a shawl, one large, almost milky eye looking down at her. Her breath her foul, and her grip surprisingly strong on her shoulder.

“What do you want for it?” Zelena asks, suspicious, and the eye glints.

“Knowledge, my girl. The only thing that matters in this world. What do you plan to do with this bean?”

She only hesitates for a spell.

“I'm taking my family to a better world.”

 

.

 

They only took the bare necessities. Some warm clothes, food and water, the turquoise comb Regina's father gave her for her sixth birthday, one of the few things that remains from his kingdom. It takes Regina a while to say goodbye to the young horse that's been bought for her two years ago. Rocinante neighs softly when Zelena tears Regina away from him, his kind brown eyes forlorn and perceptive. Regina cries without a sound until they reach the edge of the woods, the tears running in tough silence on her cheeks. Zelena embraces her, her hands running up and down the younger girl's arms to keep her warm while she lifts her eyes to check on the moon.

“The old hag shouldn't be long. She said she'll meet us here with the bean.”

“She's here,” Regina says quietly, shaking like a leaf, as a tall and dark figure emerges between the trees.

“You have what we want?” Zelena says boldly, but the old witch doesn't look at her, focusing her single eye on Regina instead.

“Is your friend here as willing as you are to leave this world? This won't be an easy journey, you need a resolved heart and a strong will to undertake it.”

“She is, now give us the bean!”

“I want to hear her say it first,” the witch sneers, and Zelena's pulse quickens, her arms closing in on Regina, fearing she will say no, fearing she will turn back, leave her alone, leave –

But Regina stiffens, and Zelena can feel the quiet strength issuing from her body.

“I am. This is what I want.”

The relief is so deep and sudden it tastes like blood in her mouth, but then –

“How dare you,” the witch says, except she's not a witch anymore, and her rags fall to the floor to reveal a rich, red-wine gown, a coldly beautiful face, two dark eyes shining like black ice under the moon.

Regina gasps and whimpers a feeble “no”, while Zelena's mind is spinning and spinning, the wheel broken and unable to come up with one of her tricks.

Her wickedness is no match for Cora's might.

“You impudent little wretch. You thought I wouldn't recognize the magical trace of my own flesh and blood? How long have you been grovelling in my kitchen? You have been wise not to use magic until now, but your nature has betrayed you. It always does, in the end.”

“What?” Zelena asks in a flat voice, disbelief invading her senses, Regina stiff and without breath in her arms, and she feels something huge is about to swoop down on her, ready to take away every little parts of herself she's fought so hard to build.

“You have already ruined my future once, child, you will not ruin my second chance. Step away from my daugther. I should have killed you that day in the woods and finish the job, but I didn't have the heart yet.”

She laughs, cruel, amused by something in her words only she can understand, but her unexpected hilarity doesn't last, and soon the full brunt of her impassive rage is directed at Regina.

“As for you, my true daughter, you will remember this punishment all your life.”

She raises her arm, and Regina follows, rising high, her feet kicking uselessly at air, her hands fighting against the invisible force around her neck.

Zelena doesn't think twice and throws her hands forward.

“Let her go!”

A hot surge of power flies through her palms, hitting Cora hard in the chest, breaking her hold on Regina who falls on the forest floor with a sickening crack. Zelena runs to her, but she's launched back against a tree, Cora standing in front of her, pinning her down with her magic.

“How dare you raise your hand against your own mother?”

“You're no mother of mine,” she spits, struggling and hissing like a cat.

“Yet I distincly remember the long 18 hours of bringing your miserable life into this world,” Cora sneers back, curling her fingers, and Zelena can't breathe. “But now I can rectify the mistake I made fourteen years ago.”

Her hand closes into a fist, and Zelena slips away, her lungs burning, the wind blowing against her face but she's enable to breathe it in, her limbs become limp, the night darkens...

“Please, Mother,” she hears, the sound weak, faraway, and suddenly she can breathe again. She swallows the air loudly, clutching at her chest. Regina stands between them, cradling a broken wrist, small but fierce against her mother.

“Please, spare her, and let her go. I promise I won't run away. I promise I won't try to see her again. I promise to obey you in everything. Please. _Please_.”

Cora pauses, considering, and she enjoys it, Zelena thinks, bristling, she enjoys watching her daughter (one of her daughters – no, she can't think of that) squirm and plead, she enjoys crushing her.

“Perhaps I could,” the monster says with a magnanimous smile. “Perhaps there's no need for brutish violence tonight. I could send her back to the world she comes from and make sure she stays there, this time.”

“Thank you,” Regina says, falling to her knees and clasping her mother's hand, kissing it desperately. “Thank you, Mama.”

Cora indulges her, her eyes taunting Zelena to react, but the teenager digs her nails into her palms, bites her tongue, and says nothing.

“But first,” Cora says, slow and vicious and _joyful_ , “first, I must erase some evidence.”

Zelena opens her mouth too late – Cora's fingers brush against Regina's scalp, there's a blinding flash of light, and her sister falls on the grass, unconscious.

“NO! What did you do to her?” She yells, scrambling to her feet and running to Regina's body. “What did you do to her you old bat! Ow!”

Cora grabs her by the arm and twists it behind her back, bringing their faces inches to each other.

“It's a shame,” she comments, distracted, as she starts drawing complicated lines on Zelena's chest with a swift and precise fingers. “You have a great power, and a savage soul your sister doesn't. But you're not the child I chose.”

The drawings burn through her skin like the words through her heart, and she grits her teeth against both pains. “What are you doing?”

“A lock,” Cora says. “One that will make sure you cannot return to this world by your own magic. Not that you'd ever want to after your memories are gone.”

Her memories. Their memories. She feels the first tear rolling down her cheek.

Zelena blinks. She sees a young girl raising ridiculous fists against her tiny chest. She feels a sticky hand holding on to hers. She hears a pearly laugh that endures through the hardships. She smells the sweet scent of home as small arms wrap around her, as a voice breaches through her defenses, _“We could be sisters.”_

She glances down at the lifeless form of Regina. She looks beautiful, a little pale in the moonlight, a little ethereal. She could be asleep. Zelena knows she won't ever see her again in dreams. And the thought rips a hole in her heart, as Cora's fingers brush against her temple.

“Be brave, little zit,” Zelena thinks as she falls and never stop, falls down the portal leading her to Oz, falls down the void left by her memories vanishing one by one. “I love you.”

 

She forgets.

 

.  
.  
.

 

Regina never has dreams or nightmares again until she reaches eighteen.

 

.

 

Zelena sometimes hears at night the sobs of a young child she cannot see and cannot touch.

 

.

 

When Mother catches her about to run away with Daniel, Regina has the fleeting thought that she's already seen that betrayed look on her mother's face. She cannot explain.

 

.

 

When Zelena learns that she has a sister, she is first filled with an overwhelming moment of hope and happiness. She cannot explain.

 

.

 

One day, as the sun plays with her hair and paints it red, Regina daydreams that it would be a beautiful color to wear.

 

.

 

One day, Zelena catches a glimpse of a scar on her palm, and when she touches it, her blood pumps harder.

 

.

 

It takes years of carefully crafted revenge, months of blood feud and dirty tricks, and one trip to the Underworld to uncover the truth.

As Cora removes her fingers from their temples, the two sisters look at each other.

See each other, finally.

Both left alone with the past, silence stretching between them as the others leave the room, they sit on the couch, at an unnecessary distance of one another.

They're not sure what kind of bridge can be built on ruins.

 

Then, Zelena smiks, and her voice is as familiar to Regina as her own.

 

“So, little zit. Seems like we have some catching up to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you could leave a comment, I'd be most grateful. I really want to know what you guys thought of this story and this idea, and I want to hear your own speculations!


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